


Adventures in Matrimony

by aralias



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Community: sixathon, F/M, Gen, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Peri does not want a wedding planner, particularly not if it's the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in Matrimony

**Author's Note:**

> Written for doctorpancakes for the Spring Sixathon 2013.

“But Doctor,” Peri protests, “we really _don’t_ need a caterer.”

“Peri,” the Doctor says – sadly, as though she has no idea what she’s talking about and he is only trying to help, “this is a wedding. Of course you need a caterer.”

“We don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“ _No_ ,” Peri says firmly, “we don’t. Yrcanos has about twenty massive guys who throw boars onto the fire ever night. That’s what their job is. Do you want to make them unemployed?”

“Boars?” the Doctor says. “ _Boars?_ Peri, I thought we were vegetarians!”

“ _You’re_ a vegetarian,” Peri grumbles. 

“What was that?” the Doctor says. 

“I _said,_ ” Peri says, remembering that she’s practically queen of this planet and doesn’t have to take this crap any more, “ _you’re_ a vegetarian, Doctor. I like meat.”

“So do I,” the Doctor says. “It is inarguably delicious, but that doesn’t mean it’s _right_ to eat it.”

“ _Ugh!_ ” Peri says, because there’s clearly nothing she can say that will throw the Doctor off his course. “Can you even cook?”

“ _Yes,_ ” the Doctor says witheringly.

“Really,” Peri says. 

“Some have called me a genius.”

“A genius at cooking?”

“...Yes,” the Doctor says. Peri glares at him. “All right, _no,_ ” he admits. “Usually it’s more of a general air of genius that’s being praised, often in relation to saving several planets, but if I really am as brilliant as they say, I can’t imagine I’ll find simple cookery beyond my considerable powers.”

“You _can’t imagine,_ ” Peri says. “Doctor, are you trying to tell me you’ve never done any cooking? Ever?”

“... I’ve read a lot about it,” the Doctor says. “And Mel’s sure to be a great help. Aren’t you, Mel?”

“I’m keeping out of it,” the Doctor’s newest companion says with a laugh. She’s been pretending to be very interested in the tapestries of Yrcanos’s ancestors for the last hour and is clearly not keen to stop now. “Though, incidentally, Doctor, while I’m a vegetarian too-”

“Ah ha!” the Doctor says. “See, Peri?”

“-I think you should let your friend do what she wants for her own wedding.”

“So do I,” the Doctor says defensively, “I’m just trying to help with the realisation.” He jumps as the doors to the throne room are thrown open. 

“ _Darling!_ ” Yrcanos declares in what for him is a friendly volume that nevertheless still shakes the furnishings. “I am delighted to see that you live. I thought perhaps the ice people had attacked you. I should have known you would have fought them off, and valiantly, too.”

“Ice... people?” Peri says. “You mean ice _warriors?”_

“They may have been,” Yrcanos says. “I did not question them.”

“I can’t have ice warriors at my wedding,” Peri says. “I just won’t have it! And don't try and tell me these ones are the good ones again, Doctor. I don't think you can tell the difference.”

“It’s all right,” the Doctor says soothingly, “it’s just another present. I may not know much about cooking, Peri, but I do know something about ice sculpting-” 

“And besides,” Yrcanos booms, "I smashed them myself not ten minutes since. They will not trouble us again.”

“ _What?”_ the Doctor says. “What do you mean you _smashed_ them?”

“One mighty blow to each,” Yrcanos says. “A set of puny opponents, but after the affair with the stone angel last year, I feel we cannot be too careful.”

“But these _were_ just statues,” the Doctor says. “I just thought a few figures from my travels with Peri might make interesting conversation pieces.”

“What,” Mel says, wrinkling her nose, "really? You mean you made an ice ice warrior? For a wedding?" 

“ _Yes,_ ” the Doctor says defensively. He pauses and then returns to his earlier outrage. “And you smashed all of them? Even the drashig? That took me five hours, you know.”

Peri slides a hand around her soon-to-be-husband’s waist and smiles up at him. “My hero,” she says.

*

“You’re going to have to tell him,” Mel says to Peri, as the Doctor bustles back in from the wardrobe room. 

“Tell me what?” the Doctor says.

“If you don’t, I will,” Mel says, with a grin. 

“You’re right,” Peri says decisively. “Doctor, I... hate all of them. Absolutely all of them.”

“You can’t mean that,” the Doctor says. “Peri, what I’ve assembled here is the finest collection of gowns in the known universe. Grown women of better taste would weep at the thought of being able to touch just one of them.” He proffers a purple and white monstrosity that calls itself a dress. 

Peri flinches back. “Yeah, I can understand that.” She stands. “Look, it’s fine, Doctor. I guess I’ll just wear what all Krontep women wear to their weddings.”

“Which is?”

Peri frowns thoughtfully. “Some sort of furs, I think. And a really cool necklace.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” the Doctor says and Peri thinks, for a moment, that they’ve got through to him. “I have an _excellent_ collection of furs _and_ necklaces in the TARDIS. If I’d known that’s what you wanted, I would have brought them out earlier." He slaps his forehead. "I’ll be right back. Stay there!”

Peri turns to Mel as the Doctor hurries back into the depths of the TARDIS. “You’re not the sort of person who actually listens to him when he says that, are you?”

“No,” Mel says. “I don’t think any of the Doctor’s friends are. He just likes to say it.”

“OK then,” Peri says, pulling the door lever. “Let’s sneak out the back while he’s not looking.”

*

“And I’ve arranged for a live band to be transported here from your time,” the Doctor explains. Behind him, Peri can see a host of Yrcanos’s men carrying away the beautiful but man-eating plants the Doctor thought she might (as a botanist) be interested in as wedding flowers. To be fair, Yrcanos did seem to find them amusing once they stopped eating his fingers, but Peri isn’t in the mood for fairness.

“What live band?” she asks suspiciously. 

“Oh, you’ll like them,” the Doctor said.

“Doctor,” Peri says again, “what kind of a live band? It better not be something awful like heavy metal or country music.” 

The Doctor’s face falls. “You... don’t like country music?”

Peri grimaces. “No.”

“But you’re American."

“Oh, and I suppose you just love Gallifreyan hip hop, do you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” the Doctor says sniffily. Then his face relaxes into a sheepish expression. “As though any Gallifreyan would ever do anything as interesting as form a ‘hip hop’ band.”

*

“Peri!” the Doctor shouts from somewhere outside. 

“Oh no,” Peri says under her breath to Mel. “What now? Quick, look busy and maybe he’ll go away.”

Mel laughs and gestures to the massive wedding cake she’s been cajoled into helping decorate. “I thought I _was_ busy.”

“Great. Good start. Here, let me help-”

“Peri,” the Doctor says, pushing open the heavy wooden door with considerably less aplomb than Yrcanos. “I’ve found you the perfect maid of honour!”

“Oh great,” Peri says. She sticks another sugar rose onto the cake. “Thanks. That’s really great, Doctor. But actually I asked Mel yesterday and-”

“Hello Peri,” Erimem says from behind the door, and Peri shrieks her name in delight and drops the piping bag. 

“Oh, I’ve missed you so much," she says, embracing her friend. 

“And I have missed you,” Erimem says, holding her tightly in return. 

“An acceptable choice?” the Doctor asks slyly.

“Yes,” Peri says. “This time you did great, Doctor.” She turns back to her newer friend. “Mel-”

“It’s all right,” Mel says, grinning happily as though it’s her reunion. “I don’t mind being a bridesmaid.”

“OK,” Peri says, weak with happiness. “Then everything’s OK. God, I feel a bit weepy-”

“Er, Peri,” Erimem says, under her breath, “what exactly is that thing?” Peri turns and realises she’s looking at the wedding cake, which the Doctor has apparently constructed in the shape of Yrcanos’s castle, and which Mel is decorating in white Royal icing and pink roses on Peri’s instructions. 

“Oh that,” Peri says. “Yeah. Don’t ask.”

*

“Ah ha!” Yrcanos bellows as he flings another unconscious Ogron onto the pile. “This is fine sport indeed, Doctor! I do not know why my wife was so insistent that you have no part in the wedding arrangements. You seem to understand our customs most excellently.” 

“Yrcanos, this is nothing to do with me.” 

“HA!” Yrcanos shouts again, as he fells another Ogron. “What was that you said, Doctor?”

“I said,” the Doctor says, “that I didn’t plan to have Ogrons attack your wedding. Honestly, I should have thought that was obvious. It was the Master who thought _that_ was a good idea.” The man in question has already disappeared, fleeing once the Doctor exposed him (under a rather unconvincing disguise as a mighty Krontep warrior) and sabotaged his radio telescope, but leaving his goons behind. Fortunately, Erimem, Yrcanos and Yrcanos’s men have proved quite capable of dealing with them. 

“Well,” Yrcanos says, “whomsoever it was who concocted this scheme, let them know they have the thanks of Yrcanos.”

“Yes, yes,” the Doctor says, annoyed that the Master’s attempts to ruin the wedding and destroy the planet have proved such a popular entertainment. “I’ll just go and check on the bride. It’s been a while since I saw-” 

With horror he realises that the amount of time since he's seen Peri is roughly two hours. This is approximately the same amount of time it's been since the Master's nefarious scheme was uncovered, and approximately the same amount of time that the wedding schedule has been set back. 

“Oh _no_ ,” the Doctor groans. “Not the vol-au-vents!”

“Are they worse than these devils?” Yrcanos asks, indicating the Ogrons. 

“No,” the Doctor says. “They’re merely burned – utterly ruined, I expect, but no. In the grand scheme of things, a burned pastry is not worse than an Ogron. Both, however, are the Master’s fault. The man is an absolute menace.”

“Do not trouble yourself, Doctor,” Yrcanos says. “My men have slaughtered many boars for the roasting. I do not think we shall starve tonight.” He laughs, pats the Doctor manfully on the back and strides off to find more Ogrons to thump.

“Peri and I are vegetarians,” the Doctor grumbles to himself.

*

“I’m sorry about all this, Peri,” the Doctor says, as he sits by the fireside later that evening, watching sixty or so boars being roasted on spits. 

The new queen of Krontep (dressed in a fur dress she thinks is pretty fetching, actually, and a necklace so large that she’s had to practice holding her head high) smiles at him. "I really don’t mind, Doctor.”

“I just wanted your wedding to go well.”

“And hey, you know what? It did,” Peri says. “Yrcanos is really happy.” She waves to him across the campfire and he waves back, his hand full of dead animal. “And I had a great time watching Erimem brain those guys with the statue of old King Lodan.” 

“Yes, I suppose,” the Doctor says sadly. “But I had such _plans,_ Peri. It was going to be perfect.”

Peri does not say ‘yeah, right’, but it’s a close call. “Doctor,” she says firmly, “the wedding was great. I’m really happy.”

“Are you?” the Doctor says and he is suddenly very serious. “Is this genuinely what you wanted, Peri?” It’s clear that he’s asking not just about the flower arrangements and the music, but about everything. Does she love Yrcanos? Does she want to be a warrior queen and spend her life on this planet, without any of the people she used to know? Should he have come back for her sooner, or is this genuinely what she wanted? 

“Yes,” Peri says kindly. “It is. Everything worked out OK, Doctor.” She puts a hand on his arm. “But thanks for coming to my wedding. And for bringing my best friend. It really meant a lot to me.”

The Doctor smiles and then leans forward and hugs her. Peri holds onto him tightly and thinks about how she will miss him, even if he is the most exasperating man she’s ever met. 

“Well then,” the Doctor says, drawing back. “I do believe I’m hungry. Time for some boar, I think.”

“I thought you said that was wrong,” Peri calls after him as he wanders towards the campfire.

“It’s your wedding,” the Doctor says. “Boar is what _you_ wanted. So I think it would be wrong _not_ to eat it.”

Yeah, Peri thinks with a smile, she’ll miss him all right. But she is happy here. And she does love her husband. 

Seeing her sitting alone, Yrcanos comes and picks her up and swings her around in circles to the sound of country music.


End file.
